THE AGES.

25

XX.

They triumphed, and less bloody rites were kept
Within the quiet of the convent cell;

The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and slept,
And sinned, and liked their easy penance well.
Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell,
Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay,

Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell,

And cowled and barefoot beggars swarmed the way, All in their convent weeds, of black, and white, and gray.

XXI.

Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain

Swelled over that famed stream, whose gentle tide
In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain,

Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide,
And all the new-leaved woods, resounding wide,

Send out wild hymns upon the scented air.

Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side

The emulous nations of the west repair,

And kindle their quenched urns, and drink fresh spirit there.

XXII.

Still, Heaven deferred the hour ordained to rend

From saintly rottenness the sacred stole ;

And cowl and worshipped shrine could still defend

The wretch with felon stains upon his soul;

C

And crimes were set to sale, and hard his dole
Who could not bribe a passage to the skies;
And vice, beneath the mitre's kind control,
Sinned gaily on, and grew to giant size,

Shielded by priestly power, and watched by priestly eyes.

XXIII.

At last the earthquake came-the shock, that hurled
To dust, in many fragments dashed and strown,
The throne, whose roots were in another world,
And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own.
From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown,
Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rushed and fled;
The web, that for a thousand years had grown
O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread
Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread.

XXIV.

The spirit of that day is still awake,

And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again; But through the idle mesh of power shall break Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain; Till men are filled with him, and feel how vain, Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands, Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain The smile of heaven;-till a new age expands Its white and holy wings above the peaceful lands.